In an interview with the Associated Press, Bullock confided with writer Jake Coyle that she'd become so comfortable hiding from the public after news broke of her now ex-husband's infidelity, she had no foreseeable plans to return to the biz.

"I was perfectly content to be permanently broken," she explained. "I honestly didn't think I was in a place where I wanted to work or wanted to step out of where I was."

With a newly-adopted son in the picture, Bullock was more than motivated to stay out of the spotlight indefinitely, but the lure of working with three-time Oscar-nominated director Stephen Daldry on the 9/11-themed drama Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close seduced her "back on the [acting] horse."

"I wasn't prepared. But the opportunity was louder than my head," she said. "It was hard, but it was what it's supposed to be."